


Dagger of the Mind

by karmadog



Series: Icarus [4]
Category: Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Despair, Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-14 02:49:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11773944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karmadog/pseuds/karmadog
Summary: The Beast has an opportunity to entertain weary travelers during the long years of the curse.  When his attempts to atone for his fatal mistake so many years ago goes predictably awry, he attempts to bargain with the Enchantress for the lives of his staff.





	Dagger of the Mind

Months passed into years.

The pile of ashen petals grew at the base of the rose as their number above dwindled slowly but surely.

The Beast took stock of the changes in his staff, as their features became more lifeless.

He noted the changes that took place within himself with less care.  He could feel the curse gripping his mind, digging its claws, sharper than his own, deep within him.  Hours were lost to him as he gave over to instincts that were no longer foreign.  Sometimes stretches of days would go by as he wandered in the forest, fully a creature in mind before he came back to himself and returned to his worried servants.

He did not know what month it was when this pattern was broken abruptly.  He did not even know what year it was.

He was outside, in sight of the castle, sharpening his claws on a tree trunk when the scent accosted him.

Human.

His mind had been half there, but now he returned to himself fully with a jolt that shook him.  He darted behind the tree whose trunk he had been abusing and peered around it.

A man and an elderly woman.  One horse.  The woman rode atop the horse as the man guided the creature.  They made their way slowly to the castle.

He had to warn the servants before they accidentally revealed themselves.

Carefully, he took a circuitous route to the servant door and snuck in.  Several of the servants were gathered around the kitchen table, chatting and laughing merrily with one another.  It still never ceased to shock the Beast how they could remain so positive when they were trapped in these forms and all slated to die within the next few years.

The Beast cut Lumière off gruffly in the middle of a particularly bawdy joke.  “We have guests.”

The entire table fell silent immediately and every gaze turned upon him.

“What do you mean?” Cogsworth broke the silence.

“I mean, there are two travellers approaching the castle at this very moment.  Perhaps they are seeking shelter from the cold.”

After a pause, Cogsworth noted, “Well, that makes sense.  It is summer outside of these grounds right now, I’m sure they weren’t prepared for this weather.”

The Beast started to ask how Cogsworth knew the season--he himself didn’t even know the year, and didn’t want to know--but quickly remembered that his major domo was, in fact, a clock.  He returned to the situation at hand.  “What should we do?”

There was an uncomfortable silence around the table.  “Well, we should definitely hide,” Plumette finally said.  There was a murmur of agreement around the table.

“Really?” the Beast said, surprising himself.  “I rather thought we should prepare the castle for their stay.  Set out food, ready a chamber, you know…” he trailed off sheepishly.  What a ridiculous idea.  He waited for the servants to gently point out his folly.

He was surprised to instead hear Mrs. Potts say, “Why, that seems a lovely idea.  After all, we’ve had no guests here since...since…” she trailed off, and the Beast understood why.  The last guests they had entertained had been years ago, when his father had been made aware of the curse and had promptly disowned him.  He knew what the staff was thinking.  It was what he was thinking, too.  Nominally, the curse had been set because he had turned someone in need away from his estate.  Although he knew it wouldn’t break the curse, he also knew he simply could not make the same terrible mistake again.  He shifted uncomfortably under the servants’ understanding gazes.

“Well?” he finally said sullenly.

“Well, let’s hop to it,” Mrs. Potts said, leaping into action.  “Chop chop, everyone!”  She began ordering the rest of the servants about, who promptly followed her commands.  The Beast was left standing at the servants’ kitchen table awkwardly.

“What can I do?” he eventually asked Mrs. Potts.

Mrs. Potts turned to him in surprise.  Then she smiled slightly.  “You can get out of that dreadful...thing you call a cloak and put on some real clothes.”

The Beast’s eyes widened.  “Me?  But I can’t possibly greet them!”

“Better you than the rest of us,” Mrs. Potts said, causing the Beast to scoff.  “No, I’m serious,” she countered.  “Not only are you the master of these estates, but you’re most definitely the least frightening.  I don’t know what you think about the form you’ve been cursed with, but I’ll tell you, a talking animal is a lot less terrifying than a talking teapot.  Can you imagine how you’d react if out of nowhere your tea service asked after your health?  No, you’d better get some some clothes on.  Madame Garderobe can help you.”

It turned out that Madame Garderobe had created a suit for his beastly form a long time ago for just such an occasion.  The Beast was constantly amazed at how the servants managed to stay on top of things, seemed to be prepared for every situation despite their predicament, while he found himself barely able to care for himself through his grief.

Donning the formal wear that he had neglected for so long was quite a hassle in his monstrous form, but he eventually did so.  He stood in front of one of the few mirrors left in the castle to survey his appearance and immediately flinched--it had been perhaps years since he had last looked upon his own reflection, and he was reminded quickly of why that was the case.  He had been considering pulling out a wig for the occasion, or perhaps some rouge as had used to be his wont, but one glance at his reflection convinced him that that might make him look even more frightening, or, at the very least, completely ridiculous.

It was just as he had decided this that a knock rang out from the front doors.  The Beast’s heart began to race.  Now was the time.  This had to be done very carefully.  He could not reveal himself immediately, not until the travellers felt more safe in their surroundings.

He heard the door creak open.  Chapeau must have let them in surreptitiously.  He heard tentative voices calling out from below, asking after the master of the estate.

Carefully, he went to the stair rail, where he was hidden in shadows.  Clearing his throat, he tried to sound as non-menacing as possible.  “Hello!  How do you fare this afternoon?”  He immediately grimaced at the false cheer in his voice.  It had been so long since he had spoken with strangers.

There was a muttering down below, followed by a man’s voice.  “Hallo, sir.  May I inquire after the master of these fine grounds?”

“I am he.  How may I be of service?”

“Oh, why, good afternoon to you, sir!  I am dreadfully sorry, we were caught completely unawares by the storm.  We simply ask for a place to stop for a while and rest our horse.”

“And I daresay yourselves,” the Beast said.  The courtly, polite language felt so strange on his tongue.  He had learned and used it in a different life, a life that was many years behind him now.  “The dining hall is to your right, my staff is preparing a meal for you.  In the meantime, you may rest your horse at our stables.”  He paused, unsure of how they would get the horse there without someone revealing themselves.  Finally, he said, “I will have it brought there directly.  There are many rooms on this floor of which you can avail yourself, in the East Wing.”  He was quickly realizing how very difficult it would be to be a good host without revealing himself.  How in heaven’s name were they to know where anything was?

“Why, thank you, sir!  It is a lucky day for us that we made your acquaintance.  May we--may we look upon our benefactor?”

The Beast shirked at this and grasped for something to say.  He had known this would come up eventually, but that didn’t make it any easier.  He cleared his throat roughly.  “I am not in any state to properly entertain guests at the moment, but I will certainly join you after dinner to show you to your rooms.  Your belongings will be brought there while you break your fast, if that is acceptable to you.”

“Sir, you are too kind!  Blessings be upon you,” the man said as he lead his elderly companion off in the direction of the dining hall.

The Beast’s sensitive ears, however, picked up the conversation of the travellers as they walked.  “I don’t know about this place,” the woman said, speaking for the first time.

The man nodded.  “It is quite eerie, isn’t it?  Not a servant to be seen, in a place like this…”

“Never in all my life did I think I’d get to see the inside of a castle, though,” the woman mused.  “A castle!”

“Yes, I wonder who he is,” the man said, jerking a nod back towards the staircase.  “Seems an odd one.  Perhaps he is disfigured?”

“Doesn’t matter,” the woman said.  “He’s given us a place to stay for the time being, and we owe him our gratitude.”

The man made a noise of agreement.

The Beast huffed a sigh.  What a coward he was.  He made a vow to himself to appear to them after they had supped and act the part of a true host.  In the meantime, he moved outside to bring the horse to the stables.

They had haphazardly tied the little pony to a statue outside--it was a wonder the beast hadn’t run away.  As soon as the Beast approached the horse, it bolted and neighed in terror.  He rolled his eyes and sighed, grabbing the animal by the reins and tugging it towards the stables.  Attempting to comfort it would be useless, and so he simply pitted his several hundred pounds against the pony’s weight and half-dragged it there.  It occurred to him as he struggled how wildly strange the situation was--how several years ago he could never have imagined guiding a commoner’s horse to his stables.  Of course, several years ago he could never have imagined having horns and a tail, either.  Sometimes he wondered now, after all these years, what it would feel like to be back in a human body.  He remembered how he had once wondered whether he would ever become used to his tail.  Now he could hardly remember what it felt like to not have one.  He was sure he would feel unbalanced in some way, as if he had walked out of the door forgetting something but not remembering what he had forgotten.  He shook his horned head at these thoughts.  It was not as though the curse was going to broken.  He pushed the implications of that thought away as he trudged on.  But glancing back at the castle, he couldn’t help but wonder--the Enchantress had never specified what kind of love he had to earn and what kind he had to give in return.  It seemed that the grand majority of the servants assumed she had referred to romantic love, but the Beast wasn’t so sure about that--he thought she had seemed to directly imply that it could be any kind.

He turned back and shook his head again, this time in disgust.  What on Earth was he thinking?  It had been years, over half of the petals on the damned rose had already fallen, and he looked like a monster.  How he thought a commoner and a woman who he assumed to be his mother would ever come to feel any sort of affection for him, he had no idea.

After gently taking the travellers’ meager belongings up to one of the opulent rooms in the East Wing, he quickly checked himself in the mirror again, attempted something that looked like a smile, then quickly closed his mouth over his hideous fangs.  Perhaps he should try to talk as little as possible.

Making his way to the dining hall, he hung in the corner of the doorway and watched his guests as they ate.  Breathing rapidly, he hung on the verge of speaking.  He nearly walked away several times as he stood there watching them, but then he saw the inanimate forms of Mrs. Potts and her son, of Lumière on the table, of his young valet in the corner, and he knew he had to overcome his fear and embarrassment.  Even if not for himself, for them.  For the servants who had stood by him his whole life and did not deserve this fate.  He gave a small grin to Mrs. Potts, who winked at him quickly in encouragement behind the guests’ backs.  Feeling fortified, the Beast began to speak.

“Good afternoon again.  I do hope you are enjoying the hospitality of our kitchens.”

The travellers spun around to the doorway that he was hidden behind.

“Hello, Sir…” the man trailed off, and the Beast realized he had not given him his name.  He frowned at this.  His name.  Good Lord, it had been so long since anyone had said his name.  It had been so long since he had thought of himself as anything other than a beast, a beast that was master of a cursed castle and had damned his cursed servants.  But the travellers had to know him as a man before they knew him as an animal.  He swallowed.

“My apologies, I never even told you my name.  Adam-François, at your service.  May I know yours?”

The man peered into the doorway.  “Er...I’m Jean-Luc, sir, and this is my mother, Marie-Elise.”  There was an awkward pause, and the Beast realized it was his turn to speak, or moreover, to make an appearance.

He steeled himself and said.  “If you should like, I will show you to your chambers now.  That is, if you are done with your supper.  Certainly there is no rush.”  He winced.  God, he used to be a master at conversation.  He had been the center of any room he had walked into and had managed to charm anyone he talked with.  Where had all that eloquence gone?  Perhaps with the last of his dignity over the last few years.  He suddenly wished that his staff was not in the room to witness him stumble through this.  “I’m...I’m going to enter the room now, and..and I must warn you that my appearance might be somewhat of a shock to you.  I have a condition, you see...erm, anyways, I mean you no harm.  Quite the opposite.”

Jean-Luc and his mother were now staring at the doorway intently with looks of concern on their faces.  Perhaps he should have just walked in without saying anything.  Now they were on the defense.

He lifted a paw to step into the room and stopped.  He couldn’t do it.  He couldn’t step into that room.  Every fiber of his being, every instinct of self-preservation froze him in his tracks.

He had to.

He walked into the room, bowed slightly, trying instinctively to make himself seem smaller.

The eyes of his guests grew as wide as saucer plates.

Suddenly, the shame and humiliation with which he had regarded his altered body in the first few months of the curse came flooding back to him.  He acutely felt his tail curl beneath his legs instinctively in his embarrassment, and he bowed his head, unable to meet their eyes.  He felt his fur prickle and his ears flatten against his head, and the heat rushed to his cheeks.  If it hadn’t been for the copious amounts of fur there, his blush could have been seen across the room.  When he finally managed to raise his eyes to meet those of the peasants, they were still staring at him, although their expressions had moved from shock to slight horror.

The Beast’s throat was dry as parchment, and he swallowed before saying, “As I said, I--I mean you no harm.  Please, allow me to show you to your lodgings.  I hope they are ade--ahem, adequate...oh, please, no--” he said, backing up quickly.

How had he not noticed it before?  The man, Jean-Luc, had kept a musket on him.  An old one that had probably defended the man’s farmland for many a year, but he had one nonetheless.  The man had risen from his chair, his hands reaching for the musket, and the Beast could not help but begin to hyperventilate.  It had had happened so many years ago, but he could still remember the pain of the gunshot when he was mistaken for a bear that first time.  It hadn’t been the last time such a mistake had been made, but it had been the last time the Beast had allowed himself to be shot, and he wasn’t about to break that streak now.

The man raised the musket slightly, but didn’t say anything.  It was as though he clutched the weapon instinctively, but was still unsure as to whether or not he should use it on the creature that was his host.  He frowned and managed to stutter out, “What the hell…?”

But the Beast was practically babbling by this point, “Please, please, don’t attack, I only wish to help!”  He cowered and raised his arms to cover his face and chest, as if that would make any difference.  “I told you, you might take a fright.  But I’m a man, I promise you, and I only wish to provide you with a place to stay for the night.  Please.”  The last word was said with a patheticness that made the old prince buried deep within him writhe with pride.

When nothing happened, he lowered his arms just enough to look at the scene before him.  The man had lowered the musket slightly but was still looking at him with alarm.  To his surprise, the man said, with some measure of politeness, “I’m--I’m sorry, you’ve been very kind, but, but I’m afraid we can’t stay here.  Come, Maman.”  He took his mother by the arm and practically dragged her to the door, still training his musket on his host.

“Wait,” the Beast said quickly.

The man paused and turned to him, waiting.

“Your...your belongings are in the first room on the right side of the staircase.  It’s golden in decor,” the Beast stated flatly, “and your horse is in the stables.  They are northeast of the castle.  Turn left at the main doors and you can’t miss them.”  He turned, defeated, away from them and bowed his head, unable to look at his servants.

As soon as the patter of the travellers’ footsteps had faded, Mrs. Potts immediately came to life again.  “Oh thank God you’re safe!  I thought for a moment--”

“I was a fool!” the Beast cut her off.

Lumière unfolded himself.  “Oh,  _ mon prince _ , you absolutely did the right thing, there was nothing--”

“God damn it, Lumière, for once in your life, would you just  _ shut up _ !  And for God’s sake, don’t call me that!” he roared.

For once in his life, Lumière did fall silent, taken aback by the Beast’s outburst.

The Beast panted heavily, on the verge of another roar.  Instead, he barked, “I will be in the West Wing.  No one disturb me.”  With that, he stomped out of the room.

The Beast pushed the doors to his chambers open with a bang, tearing his clothes off as he did so, ripping the cravat to ribbons, throwing the remains of the fine silks aside until he wore nothing but his thick fur coat.  He stalked right up to the rose encased in its glass jar.  With a pang of grief, he noted that there were far more petals at the base of the stem than on it.  Carefully, he lifted a paw to the glass, resting his gnarled hand against it longingly.  He watched with only mild horror as a petal fell before his very eyes.  He felt the castle crumble around him, heard the exclamations from the staff downstairs, felt his bones stretch and bend slightly, and found he no longer had the energy to feel anything but a deep, overwhelming despair.

Abruptly, he threw back his head in an anguished howl, tearing at his fur, thrashing at his arms and legs, raking claws down his flat, broad face.  “ _ Why?! _ ” he screamed at the rose.  He knew by now that the Enchantress could not hear him through the accursed object, or, if she could, she had resolutely ignored all of his past tirades at the rose.  “Why would you create a curse that could be broken if there was no hope?!”  He had raged at the bloom countless times over the past several years, but this, he knew this was different.  This time, his words did not sprout from the thorny soil of anger but rather the barren, cracked ground of despair.  “How can you expect me to earn the love of another when no one can even look at me without fearing for their lives?   _ What can you possibly want from me _ ?”

He quieted down with the abruptness that only the deeply distraught can have, leaning his horned head against the plinth.  Closing his eyes, he breathed, “I was a bad man.  I accept that now.  I don’t know if I’ve changed.  I probably haven’t.  I no longer even question whether the punishment fit the crime.  Frankly, it doesn’t really matter anymore, does it?  But,” and with this he heaved a great sob, “but why, oh God why did you lay their lives at my feet?  To teach me to feel responsible for the welfare of others?  To teach me the meaning of guilt?  Well, I can assure you, I feel both in great abundance!!”  He began to wail again.  “They didn’t deserve this!  They are to suffer a fate worse than mine for crimes they did not commit!  For God’s sake, he’s just a little boy!”  He fell prostrate on the floor.  “Their lives hinge on my breaking a curse that is unbreakable.  Please!  If not for me, for them!  For…” and his mind was assaulted with so many images and memories.  Memories of Mrs. Potts tousling his hair when he managed to sneak into the kitchens once again, memories of Cogsworth huffing in sour but affectionate exasperation when he became distracted in his studies, memories of Lumière filling his loveless childhood with so many stories, tricks, and songs.  He thought of Mrs. Potts holding him and singing to him after his mother passed away.  He remembered the worry in all of their eyes as his father became stricter and harsher with him. They had all stood silent as their employer had raised his son as a “proper nobleman”, but the worry and care had been there, hidden beneath a thin veneer of professionalism.

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut against the next image...an image of him alone, rattling around a dark and empty castle as he became more and more the animal on the inside that he was on the outside.  The years wasting him away as he stood surrounded by lifeless trinkets and furniture, all lovely, but lifeless nonetheless.  Like all that he had owned and valued before the curse.  Shadows of the people who had raised him, haunting him, the guilt of their deaths weighing him down for countless years that would bleed into decades, until at last he would wither away with the long dried and decayed petals of the rose.  The Beast could think of no darker hell.  The emptiness that filled him in that moment was enough to snatch the breath from his great frame.  And that was when he knew.  Knew that anything, death, perhaps even the fiery hell that surely awaited him for his sins on the other side of this world, was preferable to the future that he had no doubt would come to pass.

“Please,” he said in a choked whisper, “please, Enchantress, wherever you are.  If you listen to nothing else I have implored of you over these past years, I beg of you, listen to this plea.  If my death would bring about their salvations, if any punishment laid upon me would restore them, whole and healthy, please give me a sign.  I would gladly, joyfully end it all here, now, if I was certain that it would save them rather than seal their fates.  Please, I beg of you.  If you can bestow upon me one mercy, give me this.”

He did not know what he expected.  In his mind, he had known that the likelihood that she would appear now when she had been absent these past several years was beyond slim, but in his heart he had harbored hope that the selfless nature of the plea might prompt her to at least grant him this one request.  Perhaps it had not been true enough.  Perhaps he had not truly felt such selflessness, perhaps his outburst was only to assuage his own overwhelming guilt.  Perhaps that was why she did not appear.

The Beast grasped his horns in frustration and anguish.  Ridiculous, going round and round like this trying to deconstruct his own deepest thoughts and feelings.  He had meant what he had said.  He knew he had.

He would rather die than see the sorrow in their uncanny gazes, the disappointment and despair in their bearings one more time.

He would die before he would spend the rest of his life alone, ashamed and wracked with the deepest guilt.

He bowed his head, closing his eyes in silent grief.  All of the tears had been spent years ago.

 

^ ^

 

Lumière hadn’t meant to overhear.  Truly, he hadn’t.  After the prince had snapped at him and retreated to his chambers, the former maîtr d’ had only thought to comfort the man.  After all, all of their fates rested on his shoulders, and it was certainly in his interest to keep the prince encouraged.  But it was more than that--although the master of the castle had quite often been depressed, despairing, and quick to temper before, there was something in the situation that very much concerned Lumière.  Something had felt very different.

He had paused at the doorway, not sure of the best manner in which to present himself without immediately being thrown out or at the very least roared at.  The prince was, as was his wont, shouting, roaring, and howling.  Lumière had been shaking his head when he had snatched a few words of the tirade, and had immediately frozen in semi-shocked realization.  The words he heard would have brought tears to his eyes if he had had any, tears of despair and grief, but also tears of hope.

While it had occurred to Lumière that the prince might feel some measure of guilt regarding his staff’s involvement in a curse primarily meant for him, he had to admit he had not thought it to run this deep.  After all, the prince who had been cursed so many years ago had thought little of his servants, if anything at all.  Or perhaps he had, but such sentiments had been buried under years of rigorous noble grooming and the culture of the court in which he had been immersed.  In the first year or so of the curse, the prince’s rage and despair seemed to have been more directed at the humiliation of his own transformation and the loss of the grand lifestyle he had once lived.  But now...now Lumière began to wonder if the master had always had this burning inside of him, and had simply been unable to admit it, perhaps even to himself.  If that was the case, he had hid it well.

Lumière couldn’t help it; he listened closer as the master’s voice lowered to a deep, sorrowful murmur.  He listened as the young prince bargained, bargained his life for their own hopelessly, and he felt such a swirl of emotions within his lifeless, metallic frame that he did not know what to do with them.  All he did know was that seven years of this horrifying existence certainly did hold the power for change, because the guilt-ridden, despairing man in that room was not the libertine prince who had been damned so long ago.

Perhaps the man would actually welcome a comforting hand right now.

Quietly, Lumière knocked thrice on the large wooden doors.  The harsh breathing from inside ceased abruptly.  There was a commotion, and large, padded footsteps followed.  The door drew back on the master of the castle, wearing only a worn shroud over his hulking body.  He looked down at his maîtr d’.  “Oh, it’s you,” he huffed in what seemed more annoyance than anger.

“I thought you might need someone to...boost your spirits?”

The prince gave the longest eyeroll Lumière had ever seen and began to close the door, but Lumière said hurriedly, “Adam.”

Adam looked back at him in surprise; Lumière realized with a pang that no one had said his name in years.  He continued, “We’re all in this together, you know.”

It had been the wrong thing to say.  Adam’s eyes clouded with sorrow and he looked to the side.

“I mean,” Lumière hurried forward, “you can tell me what you need to tell me.  It is not healthy for you to deal with this alone.”

“You heard me,” Adam said flatly.  It was not a question, and it was not said in anger; rather, resignation.

“Yes,” Lumière responded simply.

Adam sighed and, to Lumière’s surprise, opened the door wider.  “Well, you might as well come in.”

The prince plodded over to the empty fireplace and to a nearby chair, moving his tail out of the way before sitting down as if in second nature.  Lumière lit the fireplace before hopping up onto the end table beside Adam.  They remained in silence for a while before Lumière said softly, “You know, if the petals fall at the rate they’ve been following, we still have a few years before…”  He didn’t finish the sentence, knowing that neither the prince nor himself wanted to hear it out loud.

The prince grunted and stared into the fire.  Finally, he said flatly, “Lumière.”

“Oui, maître?”

“I honestly don’t think this curse is meant to be broken.”

“Do not say that, Master!  Of course it is meant to be broken, else why would she have given you a way to break it?”

The prince bowed his head.  “To mock me.  To show me how powerless I truly am.  I don’t know.  I can’t enter into society like this, very few people approach this castle due to it having been forgotten in addition to the eternal winter, and the few people who do are...I mean look at me, Lumière.  I can’t even entertain weary guests looking like this, how am I ever to earn someone’s affection in any sense?  What...what did I do wrong back there?  How can I change?  She won’t even give me the chance and…”  He took a harsh breath.  “I don’t...I know it seems hard to believe, but I don’t even really care anymore whether I… I just, I just can’t imagine...if the last petal falls...God, Lumière, I am so. Sorry.  I am so...damn...sorry,” he said, his breath hitching in a sob.

Lumière studied the grieving monster beside him, and, for the first time in years, could see the little boy he once was, the little prince that would follow him around and beg him to tell him fairy tales, or would simply be constantly underfoot as the staff went about its duties.  Slowly, he said, “Master, the very fact that you feel this way gives me hope.”

The prince poked one very blue eye out from behind his large paws and gave Lumière a questioning look.  Lumière continued, “Master, you were cursed because...well, let’s just say I cannot imagine you would have been worrying so much over the fates of your servants before you were cursed.”

The prince looked even more ashamed, if that was possible.  “I...I regret the man I was.  And I regret...that you had to suffer for...for my crimes.”

“ _ Mon prince _ , I believe we suffer for our own crimes.”

The prince huffed a bitter laugh.  “Oh, I know that theory that you and Mrs. Potts are throwing around.  That you didn’t do enough.  You didn’t make me become the monster I was.”

“It is not a theory, Master.  The Enchantress made clear why she had cursed us.”

“Then she is mad.”

“Well, the faery folk do think very differently from us, I’ve heard.”

“God, Lumière if I’d known...if I’d known that night...that night ruined all of our lives.  My decision...we’ve been living in hell for the last several years, all because of that one night.  If someone had told me that morning what horror the day would end in…” the prince trailed off, looking at his paws folded in his lap.  “I think after all these years, I am still in shock.”

Lumière nodded knowingly.  “Master...How long have you felt this way?  About us?”

The prince was quiet for several moments.  Then he said, “As soon as I realized you had been cursed along with me.”

Lumière was shocked.  He had figured that the prince, still proud after all these years, would have been hiding guilt for quite some time, but from the beginning?  “Oh, Adam...why did you not tell us of these feelings before?”

“It was not your cross to bear.  I had already saddled you with a large enough burden.”

“I think...I think the sentiment would have been appreciated by the staff.”

The prince grimaced.  “And what was I to say, Lumière?  I’m sorry I damned you all to this half-existence?  I’m sorry that you were ripped from your families and bodies because I lived a life of excess and vanity?  For God’s sake, I’m too ashamed to even be in their presence.  Did you think I hid myself away because I thought myself above you all?  Because I can assure you, that could not be farther from the truth.  Quite the opposite, in fact.”

Lumière studied the hulking figure beside him, despondent and hopeless.  “Surely, Master, you were not laboring under the false impression these last several years that we felt bitterness towards you.”

“Don’t call me that.  I’m no one’s master,” the prince murmured.

“Adam, then.  And yes, I know what you call yourself, and you’d better never use that word to describe yourself again.  I do not call myself candelabra, after all, and I do hope you don’t think of me that way.”

Adam shook his head with a sad smile and then said seriously, “You’d better not tell any of the other staff about this conversation.”

Lumière sighed.  “If that is what you wish.  Like I said, though, I think they would appreciate it.”

The prince gazed at the rose that dictated their lives and said, “You know, for me personally, I don’t know...I don’t know whether it would matter anymore if I was ever a man again.  I know, I know,” the prince said at Lumière’s disbelieving expression.  “But...but seven years like this...how could we ever go back to a normal life?  It’s...this...whether or not the curse is ever broken, and I don’t think it will be, could you imagine?  Being human again?”

Lumière didn’t answer.  Truth be told, it was something he had sometimes wondered himself.  This nightmare had lasted so long it was hard to imagine what it would be like if they ever were redeemed.

Adam turned back to him and said, slowly, “Just know this, friend.  When the last petal does fall, and I am sure it will one day, I will not be long in following you into that dark night.  I will make certain that it ends for me as it ends for you.”

Lumière turned away from the broken man in front of him and again said nothing for a time.  What could he say?  In this he would not dissuade the prince.  What was the point?  He was sure that, if he was in the same position, he would be considering seriously the same choice.  After a quiet moment, he said, “Master, I will not lie to you, before the curse was set...what I want to say is, you were no different than many other noblemen.  I do not understand why you in particular were punished for that lifestyle, but you were.  Maybe...maybe it is because she saw the capability for change in you where she did not see it others.”

The prince’s face turned stony.  “You overstep your bounds, Lumière.”

“Oui, I do.”  Clambering down from his perch, Lumière made his way towards the door.  He turned back then to the prince.  “I should let you know, sir, that the moment the guests walked onto these grounds the pantries were restocked, presumably magically.”

The prince looked up at him in surprise.

“Yes, that was the staff’s reaction as well.  I suppose she wanted to give you the chance to offer our guests food, if you so desired.  Anyways, we can, of course, prepare you a real meal then if you want.”

The prince turned away and shook his head.  “Leave it.  Perhaps someone else will come by needing food and shelter.”

Lumière studied him for a long moment, then said, “A wise choice in my opinion, Master.”  He paused for a moment, then said, “My prince, if I may--come to me next time you despair.  Or Mrs. Potts.  Or even Cogsworth.  It is not healthy for any of us for your despair to turn to anger.  We’ve leaned on each other through these times of darkness.  Do not let this guilt of yours keep you from doing the same.”  The prince huffed a growl and turned away.  Lumière continued in the same breath, “Alright, alright, I’ll leave you alone now.  Just think about what I’ve said.”  His gaze swept across the room, devoid now of portraits, scattered with the bones of old carcasses, past the nest of bedding that the prince had begun sleeping in years ago.  For the first time, he realized why the prince may have begun doing this.  He had always assumed that it was out of self-pity, to bemoan the fact that he was now a lowly beast rather than the wealthy son of a duke he had once been.  But now, with the new pieces to the puzzle that Lumière had gathered in this conversation, he realized that perhaps it was the prince’s warped and misplaced way of atoning for the privilege and lavishness in which he had revelled in his younger years that had ultimately led him and his staff to this fate.  And that the anger and short temper that accompanied the prince everywhere was merely a mask to hide the guilt and shame he felt, even from himself.  Anger, after all, was a much less painful feeling than guilt.  Lumière opened his mouth to say something to this effect, then closed it again.  Even he realized that the line one was not supposed to cross with a prince was squarely behind him.  Such a conversation could wait for another day.  Or another year.

Lumière left the wing, leaving the prince alone with his thoughts.  His line about having hope had been meant for the prince, and it had been a lie.  For the first time, his constant optimism had failed him.  His hope that they would come out of this, victorious and restored to their bodies after so many long years, had died in that room with the Beast.

**Author's Note:**

> So there's probably only going to be one more work in this series, introducing Maurice and the entrance of new hope into the castle. Then I might continue with some other work in this fandom. I decided to write this piece because I'd like to think that the Beast was learning, perhaps wanted to change, but along the way lost hope that he ever could and that is why he is the sour creature we see in the movie. I also like to think he did feel a deep measure of guilt regarding his servants, especially as the years went by and they became his only family rather than just his lower-class staff. But I also thought he would be too proud too show this side of him to his staff, and I wanted to dig into that layer of the issue. I hope the characterization was okay! Thanks for sticking with me for this long!


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